


Honeymoon

by Schgain



Series: Honeymoon AU [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dorks in Love, Everybody Lives, F/M, Good AU, Illustrated, Julia Deserved Better, Magnus and Julia Centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: Julia Langtree Burnsides does not seem like the kind of woman to avoid fate, but she certainly looks like the kind of paladin who can lift a warhammer that big. Even now, in the heat of battle, Magnus cannot keep his eyes off his wife. He is still a lovestruck fool for her, all these years after the moment under the gazebo.---Julia survives and helps los Tres Horny Boys with their quests.





	

When Magnus' cart breaks down, he knows it is not the end of the world, but the eating worry that he won't make it to the woodcarving competition, let alone win, might as well be the same thing. It gnaws at him the whole while Steven is in the forge, smithing the new axel gears for the wheels. The anxiety weighs in his gut and on his shoulders, and Magnus can find only a small respite through pacing the lobby of their establishment, slow back and forth laps across the floor (and pointedly avoiding that one squeaky floorboard Magnus has been putting off replacing).

Every so often, as if to make sure no one could forget his presence, Magnus lets out a dramatic, loud sigh.

His wife, having enough of this behavior, looks up from her work to quirk an eyebrow at him. "You'll wear a groove in the floor if you keep pacing like that," she jokes, saying just the thing to ease Magnus' nerves. "Grandma Chair is going to win the competition, which you'll certainly get to on time. I'm sure of it." She picks herself up from her seat in the bay window to walk over to her husband, and Magnus can't help but give her a crooked grin.

Julia Langtree Burnsides, the only person in Ravensroost who is even close to him in height. Julia, with her cinnamon skin and broad nose, her frizzy, wavy hair barely held in a braid that's so dark brown it's almost black. Julia, chubby silhouette and soft edges hiding strong arms and experienced work. Julia, whose hands are calloused but still graceful. Julia, who makes even labor into a masterful art, just by being herself.

She's beautiful.

Magnus is hopelessly, irreparably, unequivocally, helplessly in love.

He finds his hands holding themselves palm up in front of her before snaking around her waist. They are broad, and calloused as well, and he has every intention of lifting Julia in an embrace and spinning them around. She opens her mouth to say something, something playful but reassuring, something so essentially _Julia_ that'd make Magnus laugh and forget all his worries. But before she can say anything, the floor shakes with a tremor that reverberates through the Craftsmen's Corridor. The smithing tools rattle on their hooks and Julia's potted ornamental pepper crashes from the windowsill. Her hands grip onto him for balance, and somewhere in the forge Magnus hears glass shatter.

"An... earthquake?" Julia asks in his arms, adjusting her glasses. Her unease guides her eyes to the window.

"Kaylen." Magnus says the word like it's a particularly offending swear, halfway between spitting and growling the name of the tyrant.

"You think he's back?" She asks, just as another tremor starts. It rocks the Hammer & Tongs to the foundation- Magnus can hear the wooden support beams and keystones groan under the stress, and dust comes dislodged from the ceiling.

"Jules, you gotta go get your father and tell everyone in the Craftsmen's Corridor to evacuate!" Magnus, though it pains him to do so, pulls himself from Julia and over to the trunk near the door. He begins haphazardly slipping into his armor as he talks. "It sounds like he's going to destroy the support beams of the whole column!"

Julia doesn't need to be told twice. She throws her braid over he shoulder and ties on her apron- not the lovely white one she got at the bridal shower but the thick, charred fireproofed one she uses in tinsmithing. When she runs for the stairs that lead to the forge, she does it with a resolve Magnus can only hope to achieve.

Gods above and below, Magnus loves that woman with his whole woodcarving heart. So much that he still aches when he stares after her, hears her muffled words to Steven and the clamor below before the both break for the back door. On their way out, Julia grabs her battle hammer and for a split second turns to Magnus, across the hall, and gives him a playful salute.

But he can't dwell-- there are lives to save and not a moment to lose. In tandem, the newlyweds spend their honeymoon dashing out the doors to once again protect Ravensroost.

\---

Taako raises his eyebrows, his chin propped in his hand. His other hand idly stirs his tea-amaretto with a twirl of his finger. "Well, when you put it that way Mags, you almost sound like a badass!"

Julia laughs, and it's graceless and she snorts while laughing, but Magnus can't stop staring, even when she's making fun of him. The way her hands fidget on her cup of cider, the way the light dances off the glasses that have been repaired countless times, the playful look she shoots Magnus across the table. "He threw up from nervousness after it was all done. All over my apron. I think he peed a little too."

"Jules!" Magnus cries with mock indignation. "You're gonna ruin my image!" He gives her a playful kick under the table, which she returns with a mischievous glint.

"After all these years, and you two are still on your honeymoon?" Merle teases. Magnus and Merle have never really ever sat down and talked about it, but he knows enough to recognize wistfulness in the cleric's voice.

"I'm spending our honeymoon protecting the world from evil with my hero husband." says Julia with a chuckle.

"I wouldn't call myself a hero per se..." Magnus rubs the back of his neck. "I'm just a really good carpenter who doesn't like bullies." Beneath his dark freckles on darker skin, he feels heat rise to his cheeks.

"Well, I'd say you're _my_ hero, Mister Burnsides." Julia folds her arms on the table and rests her head on them.

"Hey, uh," Taako interjects. "Whatever happened to that rocking chair? I've never seen it with Magnus' stuff, and I've broken into his house a lot. I mean, visited."

Magnus thinks. "Can't remember! Julia, do you know?"

She nods. "Kaylen had knocked you unconscious, so I grabbed the only thing in reach and broke it over his head. The blunt force trauma of it killed him pretty much instantly- his head cracked like an egg."

Taako and Merle look at Julia with new fear and respect.

Magnus can't think of a time he's ever been more in love.

\---

When Magnus gets the call to guard the caravan with his bar buddies, Julia wants to come too.

He doesn't see why not at first. Merle and Taako are good to her, and the job shouldn't be too dangerous at all; the party is mostly a precaution. Besides, she's just finished her Paladin initiation, and she's certainly handy with that hammer of hers. He also thinks, with a sudden clarity and certainty, that leaving her alone while he travels, would be the worst mistake of his life.

So she and he pack up the Hammer & Tongs, leaving the home to be watched by Steven. In his age, he's since passed on carpentry and smithing to the newlyweds, and he seems perfectly content to housesit while they guard a caravan.

"You two be safe, now!" he had said, waving from the doorway. "Oh! Wait, Jewel, I have a last present for you." Julia and Magnus stop and turn, and Steven Waxton trots up to press something into their hands: two pairs of enchanted smithing gloves, monogrammed with their initials and embroidered with their craft's logo. "Magnus the Hammer, and Julia the Tongs!" He says proudly. "They'll do you good out there, I just know it."

But it's when the caravan is attacked that Magnus objects to Julia accompanying him. There's a lump in his throat and his hands start shaking, and he can't stop his mind from coming up with every impossibly awful outcome that he cannot stand himself to speak, and he feels the beginnings of tears well up and roll over his brown cheeks.

"Magnus?"

Her voice is light, and she dodges away from a dashing goblin to grab her hammer. She glows with an integrity he cannot hope to compare to, a wonderful, powerful figure that he's suddenly realized could be fleeting.

"Take the ox and get out to safety- I'll meet up with you later, I'm not gonna let these guys hurt you." he says. Magnus pushes the reins of the oxen into Julia's hand, and looks back at the chaos ensuing.

"Magnus Terry Burnsides!" she scolds, and when he looks back to her, he withers under her eyes. (Burgundy, she always specifies, but to Magnus they look rose-red.) "Magnus, _who_ is the best tinsmith this side of Phandalin?"

Magnus fiddles with his fingers. There really isn't time for this, but he mumbles "you, dear."

" _Who_ lifted your horse out of the wetlands when you got stuck in the mud?"

"You, dear."

"Who just completed her paladin training, and knows just as good as you how to throw a Burnsides fastball special?"

"You, dear."

She stands up in the cart and maneuvers to put herself next to him. "And who loves you more than anything?"

Magnus cannot help but laugh. "You, dear!" He chuckles, and she laughs with him, that deep laugh where she snorts.

"That's right! So you know that I can handle myself when a little danger comes my way. Let me help you! I'm no more willing to see my husband get hurt than you're willing to see your wife get hurt!"

Magnus' stomach flutters with butterflies when she says husband and wife, but he nods and takes his axe in his hand. She adjusts her grip on her hammer, and they, together, charge the goblins.

"Magnus rushes in!"

" _That's_ your super cool battle cry you were telling me about?"

**Author's Note:**

> THEY DESERVE TO BE HAPPY!!! 
> 
> Thanks to the lovely King (@K1spiegel on tumblr) for providing the illustration! 
> 
> Anyways for information about this AU's Julia!:
> 
> \- Julia is a human Neutral Good Paladin (Oath of the Ancients)!  
> \- She keeps the Folk Hero backstory as Magnus.  
> \- Her main weapon is a warhammer almost as big as she is, named Rosebuddy.  
> \- She took up her father's craft of smithing, and usually works with tin or occasionally silver.  
> \- She is six feet tall, and seven inches shorter than Magnus. She weighs 255 lbs. 
> 
> I'm gonna try to write scenes for all sorts of parts but if there is a scene you'd like to see made better by Magnus and Jules bein' lovey dovey let me know!
> 
> Kudos and Comments greatly appreciated! Thank you!


End file.
